Table of Content

This is a working instructional to deploy a Meteor 1.4 app with the following (as of January 8th, 2017):

• DigitalOcean Ubuntu 16.04
• Meteor 1.4.2.3
• MUP (not MUPX)

The following are missing from this instructional:

• SSL setup
• Remote MongoDB

This is a combination of instructions from multiple articles, but mostly from @jamiewilson's amazing gist tutorial with a few edits to the NGINX/MUP portion. The purpose of a new instructional is to address some recent issues with the default docker and node versioning, and also to make myself feel better for the last 10 hours I spent chainsmoking and getting this s%&# to work.

1. Login to DigitalOcean and create a droplet
2. Select Ubuntu 16.04 distribution
3. Add secret PEM key

1. ssh [email protected]
2. adduser username
3. Enter UNIX password and confirm
4. gpasswd -a username sudo
5. sudo visudo
6. Replace %sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL with %sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
7. su - username
8. mkdir .ssh
9. chmod 700 .ssh
10. nano .ssh/authorized_keys
11. Copy your local dev SSH key with cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy
12. Save edit
13. Restrict permissions with chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
14. Configure ssh config with nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
15. Change PermitRootLogin to: PermitRootLogin no
16. exit
17. Test user connection with ssh [email protected]

1. Add the following domain registrar
   • ns1.digitalocean.com
   • ns2.digitalocean.com
   • ns3.digitalocean.com
2. Log back in to DigitalOcean, go to Networking, and click on Domains
3. Add a domain and select your DigitalOcean droplet in dropdown
4. Add 2 A Records:
   • @ / xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
   • www / xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
5. Add swap space (follow these instructions exactly)

1. Log back in to Droplet server

2. sudo apt-get update

3. Install NGINX: sudo apt-get install nginx

4. sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

5. Add the following and save:

   # redirect www to non-www
   server {
       listen 80;
       # to redirect all subdomains use *.yourdomain.com instead of www.yourdomain.com
       server_name www.yourdomain.com;
       return 301 $scheme://yourdomain.com$request_uri;
   }

6. sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourappname.com.conf

7. Add the following and save:

   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name YOURDOMAIN.com;
       access_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.access.log;
       error_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.error.log;
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://XXX.XXX.XX.XXX:3000;
           proxy_http_version 1.1;
           proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
           proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
       }
   }

8. Link the config file to sites-enabled: sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourappname.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yourappname.com.conf

9. Hide NGINX number: sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

10. Uncomment server_tokens off;

11. Restart NGINX: sudo service nginx restart

12. Test redirect: curl -I http://www.yourdomain.com

Follow these steps exactly if your app is not ready for public viewing and you want username/password login. When you get to Step 3, edits should occur in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourapp.com.conf file from Step 7 under NGINX Setup. See below:

server {
   listen 80;
   server_name YOURDOMAIN.com;
   access_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.access.log;
   error_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.error.log;
   location / {
       proxy_pass http://XXX.XXX.XX.XXX:3000;
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
       proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
       proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
       auth_basic "Restricted"; // <-
       auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd; // <-
   }
}

1. npm install -g mup

2. mkdir ~/mup-your-project-name (outside/separate from your actual project repo directory!!!)

3. cd ~/mup-your-project-name

4. mup init

5. Copy your project's settings.json into MUP settings.json

6. Make following edit to your mup.js file

   module.exports = {
     servers: {
       one: {
         host: 'yourdomain.com',
         username: 'your_droplet_username'
         pem: '~/.ssh/id_rsa'
         // password:
         // or leave blank for authenticate from ssh-agent
       }
     },
   
     meteor: {
       name: 'yourappnamewithoutspaces',
       path: '/local/path/to/your/app/repo',
       servers: {
         one: {}
       },
       buildOptions: {
         serverOnly: true,
       },
       env: {
         ROOT_URL: 'http://yourdomain.com',
         MONGO_URL: 'mongodb://localhost/meteor',
         PORT: 3000
       },
   
       docker: {
         image: 'abernix/meteord:base' // <- THIS IS IMPORTANT
       },
       deployCheckWaitTime: 60
     },
   
     mongo: {
       oplog: true,
       port: 27017,
       servers: {
         one: {},
       },
     },
   };

   There may be an issue with your PEM key if it's passphrase encrypted. Then, do the following:

   eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
   ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

   ...and then remove the following line from mup.js: // "pem": "~/.ssh/id_rsa"

7. mup setup

8. SSH back in to Droplet with username (not root) and run: sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)

9. sudo reboot

10. Back in MUP directory: mup deploy

• Deploying a Meteor app to Digital Ocean
• How To Add Swap on Ubuntu 14.04
• How To Set Up HTTP Authentication With Nginx On Ubuntu 12.10
• Docker can't connect to docker daemon
• mup no longer works with encrypted keys
• [1.4] mup: errors in production (AssertionError: "undefined" === "function")
• [meteor 1.4] AssertionError: "undefined" === "function"